


Made of Shattered Stars

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jemma Simmons Needs a Hug, Jemma needs to deal with her trauma, Phil being paternal, Phil getting called out, Platonic Relationships, Post-Episode: s03e11 Bouncing Back, Suicide Attempt, Why is no one acknowledging Simmons being tortured?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6392407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She used to feel filled with stars.... Now she just felt filled with broken glass.</p><p>Everything finally catches up with Jemma. Coulson finally understands the damage his neglect has done to his team. It should have never gotten to this point, but it's not too late to put the pieces back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Made of Shattered Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feelings about the way the writers have been treating Simmons since the end of season one. This is my attempt to give her back some of her voice and call someone out on all the shit she's been dragged through with barely any support. I'm giving her support and room to vent righteously and explore the emotions the show suppresses. There's room for adding on if anyone wants it/I get so wound up by tomorrow's episode I have to. 
> 
> Warning: description of attempted suicide

She used to feel filled up with stars. When she closed her eyes and let her white-knuckle grip on rules and reasons and reality ease, she used to feel luminous and bursting with incredible energy. She used to feel beautiful.  
Now she just felt full of broken glass. First literally, but the broken bones and bruises healed and that jagged, shrieking pain stayed.  
Because Will was dead and it was her fault.  
Because Ward had promised he would never hurt her.  
Because she’d tried so hard to do the right, brave, proper thing and couldn’t.  
Because Fitz had been the one to make her feel helpless and insubstantial. Again.  
Because she wasn’t okay.  
Because no one had asked her if she was okay.  
Coulson made her torcher someone today. He talked about being there as if he was the only one in the room who knew what being caught in a moment of terror was like.  
She felt like a ghost. Like she was screaming and no one could hear. Or worse yet, they didn’t care. And why should they? Old news, old pain. Bigger problems.  
It swept over her suddenly, as it always did, the overwhelming feeling of selfish rage and isolation and impotence and terror and hopelessness. And this time must have been one time too many, because she couldn’t stop herself, couldn’t even think of a reason to try. The knife she’d made in hell was out from under her pillow. She knew better than anyone where to slice, and she had only a moment to be surprised by the crimson that spilled out across the white duvet instead of the sparkling shards of stars she’d expected.  
…  
She’d forgotten about the life alert. She was the one who designed it, a million years ago. So really it was her own fault she’d failed. Like always. But that was a petulant thought.  
The moment her vitals spiked, an alarm went off in medical. There was a stretcher and a team of EMTs there almost before she could pass out. They had her in surgery before she’d even lost a pint. They stitched her shut, replaced her blood, confiscated her knife, strapped her to the hospital bed. By the time the news trickled through to everyone else, she was already swimming foggily to the surface.  
“Because I’m angry!” she shouted when they asked her why. Perhaps it was the drugs swimming through her system, lowering her inhibitions. Perhaps waking up their shock and confusion finally pushed her over an indignant, incredulous, furious edge. How could this possibly come as a shock to them?  
Fitz looked like he was torn between crying and throwing up, staring at the bandage taped to her neck instead of at her face. Daisy stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, looking furious. Bobbi had a gentle hand on her knee. But under varying degrees of upset, everyone just looked baffled. And that was probably what did it.  
She geared up for a righteous tirade and instead burst into hysterical tears. Goddamnit.  
Coulson was the one to gather the broken parts of her up in his arms. He held her tightly, had to, to hold her together, and stroked the back of her head like her father had once done a long long time ago.  
“Give us a few minutes,” he murmured quietly, and she heard the others filing slowly out of the medical bay. When it was just them, and her crying had eased a little, he said softly, “Will you tell me what you’re angry about? Please?”  
She took a shuddering breath, not sure if, after all that, she could find enough of that elusive anger to tell him. But when she leaned back and looks at him, the afternoon’s events crashed over her all over again, and it wasn’t a problem.  
“Because you forgot I was tortured,” she told him, an arrow of accusation that flies heavy and true. She didn’t have to see the way his face changes to know that. Her breath started to come faster, angrier. “Because you think Ward hurt you worst when he hurt you least. Because you only came to see me once after I got back. Because you act like everything else is more important than us. Because you act like I should be okay and don’t even notice when I’m not.”  
She took a few more gasps to feed her empty lungs. He didn’t let go of her, didn’t drop her there like the broken thing she just admitted to being. He just kept rubbing her back, slow and gentle.  
“I’m sorry,” she slipped out through waves of stupid tears. “That was all very childish to say.” She pulled away, tried to dry her soaked cheeks on her palm. Righteousness and guilt for the turbulent thoughts swirling inside of her came in waves, their tides sometimes quick to turn.  
“It’s not childish. It’s how you feel,” said Coulson, more earnest and genuine than she’d heard him in a long time.  
“I know you’re trying to save the world,” she tried to explain, not really to apologize, but to make him see she wasn’t just being self-centered, “and I can’t get in the way of that, and I know you don’t have time to babysit me or – or –”  
“Jemma –”  
“But I’m not just any S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, sir,” she interrupted, anger returning. “You pulled me out of my life and made me part of a team – your team – and we gave up everything for you. I gave up everything for you. You don’t have to care about every agent you bring on board, but you have to care about me and Fitz and Daisy and May because you forced us to be a family, and after all that you don’t just get to treat us as weapons or tools or means to your end without treating us like people, too.”  
She took a shuddering breath and went on. “And it’s not like this is coming out of the blue. If you were just a tiny bit less self-involved, this wouldn’t be surprising in the least. I’ve been severely traumatized on three separate occasions, and aside from a few totally ineffectual sessions with a therapist who turned out to be a monster with a god complex, I haven’t had any kind of treatment. You should have seen this coming and you didn’t and there are only so many excuses for not even bothering to watch for the obvious.”  
He looked satisfyingly abashed, so she made an effort to stem the tirade.  
“You’re right, Jemma. You’re absolutely right. I’ve been incredibly self-absorbed lately, and that’s in excusable.” He looked down at their clasped hands, and took a long breath. “I’m so, so sorry, though. Especially about today. I didn’t think – but I should have. I could never forget what happened to you. That debrief is seared into my memory, and I’ll never stop being sorry for that night.”  
“I’m just so angry,” she whispered. “At everyone. And most of all at myself.” She blinked hard and fast and looked up at the ceiling. “I thought I was stronger than this.”  
His arms wrapped around her again, tight, warm. “You are, without a doubt, the strongest person I’ve ever met.”  
She closed her eyes as a different kind of tears soaked his shoulder.  
“You’re going to win this battle,” Coulson promised. “And from now on, you don’t have to fight it alone.”


End file.
